Home by Design

In the Hotseat at Aunt Ruth’s

I ser ved my time and, frankly, would have preferred the aliens

By Cy nthi a

a

daMs Truvy’s Beauty Spot in Steel

Magnolias equipped its Natchitoches, La., patrons to meet life with sky-high hair. But the Franklin Beauty Shop in Monroe, N.C., where my aunt delivered hard truths and even harder hair, was a ver y different place.

My Aunt Ruth ’s shop, which opened in the 1950s, was an assault upon all the senses. It possessed the stark ambiance of a morg ue. And it taught me this: Beaut y is in the eyes, ears and nose of the beholder.

It wa s a s ut i l it ar ia n a s my f at her’s barb er shop: st ark , fluores

c ent l ig ht s, p e a g re en wa l ls, A r my g re en v inyl flo or, t hre e m ir rors, t hre e st at ions, t hre e cha irs out fit te d w it h ma ssive dr yers a nd t wo ma n ic ure t ables.

L arge windows with open metal Venetian blinds (why was something so hideous called Venetian?) overlooked Frank lin Street. Passersby could peer directly into her place, which, unlike the barber shop, emanated noxious chemical smells.

Incredulously, my aunt made a decent income and won devoted f riends. It was ideally situated near the Oasis Sandwich Shop, which ser ved fab sodas, floats, f ries and burgers. T here, I would idle while my mother got her “do.”

Even as a child, I understood that my mother was not improved by the ministrations of my aunt. Her hairdos might just as well have been created with tongs and barbecue tools.

Any fool could see she looked better going into the Frank lin, as we called it, than she did leaving it. T he drive home was confirmation as my mother dusted ditches rak ing a br ush through her shellacked hair, “tr ying to fi x this before we get home,” she’d scof f, as the green Olds swayed across lanes.

Mama was never, ever pleased by her sister’s work.

Ruth, a natural beaut y, loved the natural world and could have been a botanist. But her school principal father stubbornly steered her into cosmetolog y, where she studied the darker ar ts of beaut y.

W hy oh why?

He died before I was born or I would have asked.

Her c ustomers’ ha ir wa s more of ten t ha n not dye d or ble ache d a n unnat ur a l shade of blue -black , re d or yel low, c urle d t ig ht , t hen ba ke d into plac e b ene at h oversi ze d dr yers su it able for flo o d re c over y op er at ions.

Clients emerged pink faced f rom the blasting heat of the silver y green stationar y dr yers and then submitted to the next step: a comb out. T his involved teasing with a rat-tail comb before the requisite (lethal) final step: Spray Net.

Hair sprays of this era contained vinyl chloride, a propellant later proven to be carcinogenic. Hard fact.

Another hard fact: My aunt’s clients looked uniformly alike once they climbed out of the sturdy swivel chair.

By Ruth ’s hands, my grandmother’s hair became a blue-black hue I rarely obser ved in nature, apar t f rom a rare beetle specimen at the Natural Science Center.

It puzzled me why anyone paid Aunt Ruth at all.

Speak ing of payment, I privately yearned to operate the large green cash register that stood at the entr y with the appointments book, watching as customers wrote out checks and waved goodbye “till the next time.” Instead, I thumbed through worn Photoplay and McCall’s magazines in the waiting area.

At age 10, when many of my friends were getting a Toni perm in their kitchen, it was decreed: my straight ponytail was inadequate. Aunt Ruth would give me a professional do before my new school year.

She washed my long straight hair, then mixed toxic chemicals in a glass bowl. As they stewed, she clipped and chopped.

Once the carnage was over, the remaining hair was tightly wound around bright pink perm “rods,” a term co -opted f rom nuclear physicists. Perm rods are to perms what uranium rods are to nuclear reactors. Either way, they’re volatile.

She applied chemicals to the perm rods. A black hair net held it in

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lock down.

I was walked to a dr yer where this tragic concoction was to “set.”

Under the dr yer, my eyes stung f rom the putrid reaction. W hen my scalp and ears began burning f rom the blasting heat, I jumped out. But Aunt Ruth ordered me back, lowering the dr yer temp to nearly tolerable.

T he t imer pinge d a nd I spr a ng f re e. A s t he ro ds were remove d a nd my he ad c o ole d, I st ud ie d t he clo ck : it wa s now ha lf pa st my ch i ld ho o d.

R ut h s w ivele d t he c h a i r t ow a r d t he m i r r or.

T he shock caused me to bite my lip so hard it bled.

I looked precisely like my grandmother.

My mother was tense as she sw ung onto the highway. A stifling ammonia cloud filled the car. I cracked the window to cool my face, still hot and now over whelmed with the enormit y of my strangeness. “Don’t worr y. My hair can’t move,” I said.

Once home, my father took one look and moaned. “Dear L ord. T he child ’s r uined.”

Devastated, I shuf fled out of the house to the barn in search of Trigger, a gentle pony who cocked his head quizzically before accepting a hug. I climbed into the lof t, where I did my best think ing, cried a little, then concocted a stor y owing much to Rod Serling and The Twilight Zone.

I wa s pl aying out si d e wh en a spa ce ship l an d e d in th e pa sture. Ali en s zappe d m e. A l ot of my h air b ur n e d of f r ight th ere! I’m ju st lu cky t o be alive.

It wasn’t exactly original or believable, but an improvement on the stor y I invented about how I needed a life-saving operation af ter peeing myself on the playground.

Bus #15 sw ung down our road the next morning, where I waited in a plaid sk ir t and white blouse, holding a new book satchel, bracing myself. Johnny sw ung the bus door open; there it was — his open-mouthed surprise. But I turned away and searched the aisle for Mar tha or Kenneth.

T hey wou ld tot a lly buy my stor y about my ha ir-today, gone -tomor row a lien abduct ion. OH

Cynthia Adams is a contributing editor of O.Henr y magazine.

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